IN THE MOUNTAIN OF DEVIL-WORSHIPERS 309

One must take care never to pronounce the name of
Shaitan [Satan] and must avoid the use of any words or
syllables, whether in English, French or Arabic, which
could, by any chance, be mistaken for that word—such
Arabic words, for instance, as khaitan [thread] and shatt
[arrow].

One must neither wear nor exhibit any article of cloth-
ing that was blue—no necktie of blue, for instance, no
ring with a blue stone in it—for blue is taboo and
anathema among the Yezidees, because it is supposed to
have magical properties inimical to Satan. Blue amulets
and charms, particularly blue beads, are worn universally
among Moslems as a protection against devils and to
ward off the evil eye. All babies and almost every do-
mestic animal in certain parts of Arabia have a necklace
or collar of blue beads, and I have even seen a woman,
in the bazaar at Baghdad, with a string of blue beads on
her Singer sewing-machine, to prevent demons from
breaking or tangling the thread. Blue, therefore, was a
color accursed among the Yezidees, who worshiped the
Arch-Demon.

A third prohibition was that one must take care never
to spit in a fire or to put out a dropped match by stepping
on it with the foot, for to them all fire is .sacred.

Since they were confessedly worshipers of Satan, I
asked Mechmed Hamdi why was it forbidden to pro-
nounce his name.

It was prohibited in their scripture, their Khitab al
As wad [Black Book], he said, of which he himself had
studied the copy of a partial translation made from Kurd-
ish into Arabic more than a hundred years before by one